


Captain's Call

by Falcolmreynolds



Series: Shadows over Sornieth [6]
Category: Flight Rising
Genre: AHAHAHAHA, Gen, but that's the only thing in here, honestly I feel really bad for her, there's a couple of Swears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 14:23:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21199109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falcolmreynolds/pseuds/Falcolmreynolds
Summary: Skirra burned these notes. Her last notes. But someone pieced the fragments together from the ash.





	Captain's Call

We went north. That’s what I remember before it - we sailed out of Starmount and headed north, to the edge of the Weft. It sort of peters off when it hits Dragonhome waters, and the North Shore isn’t well-defended. From what, I’ve got no gods-damned idea.

It was wonderful weather the way out there. We passed the Weft and the barrier - got through at night, with naught but a single one of those Watch-dragons spotting us, and they didn’t seem to do anything. They flew off, but if they got someone’s attention about us, we were out of there before they showed up. Fine by me. They just serve to reduce piracy anyway, and that’s the exact opposite of what I want out of another seagoer.

Piracy’s a fine business, if you run it properly. I hate when people mess about with it.

My memory’s a little fuzzy from around that time, so I’ll try to get everything right, but I’ll probably miss some details. Some time. Some of the details are… I can’t forget them, no matter what I do. Those’ll be clear.

We went north, and west, because I know from the charts there’s islands out much further than the coast of Sornieth. One big ocean and one continent, is that all you thought the world was? Pah. No, it’s much bigger. We rarely go north of the equator, because things are so far out, but I’ve heard there’s lands up there too. We live on a tiny little place. A billion dragons, all crammed onto one hunk of rock in the ocean, pretending it’s the greatest land to ever poke itself out of the sea. No, no, no. That’s all wrong.

There’s reefs out there, beautiful ones, though sometimes it’s too hot and the coral dies. Lots of creatures out there - serpents, fish, whales, octopuses, squids and all that. Your normal reef denizens.

A few days into navigating the reefs - the weather stayed beautiful, the entire time - we spotted something that looked like a serpent, but it was dead. I sent a few dragons on a flyover - turned out it was a big dead dragon, like a spiral, but massive - huge! Big as a guardian, dead as a fishbone, looped through the water like a sad hose. The sides were all ripped up, and it was of course scummy and rotting from being dead, but we left it be. Clearly something was wrong with it. No member of my crew was stupid enough to touch that, or get near where it died other than to see it, ‘cos we’re not morons.

We took a hell of a detour around it. Kept heading north; there’s an island out there, to the northwest, a beautiful little quay. A tropical paradise. Like the labyrinth, but all for ourselves… a good place to hide things. Why am I telling you where we hid things? ‘Cos you should never, ever go there. Take my word for it. I’ll tell you why.

We’d been there for a couple days, taking care of the ship, getting water from one of the springs there, the like, when one of the crew went stark raving mad. Out of nowhere - he’d always been a bit quiet, but in the middle of the day he stood up and screamed at the top of his lungs, and walked into the ocean. Just walked right in. No hesitation, nothing. We tried to pull him out, but he threw us off - he was a tundra, mind you, so he was never really the strong type - and went charging into the waves. Soaked his fur straight through and down he went, drowned himself. We grabbed his body out of the water and I’ll never forget it - he was a wind dragon, but his eyes weren’t green anymore. Well, they were, but not the same green - it was this scummy white-green, like dead flesh. And he blinked, still, so we went ahead and threw him back in the ocean, because we weren’t having that cursed nonsense on my damn ship.

Understandably, we were a bit leery of the island after that.

It was… that night, I think, when I first heard the voice. It was a low rumble, like whalesong, only I could tell it was trying to speak. I spent a bit trying to understand it, standing on the beach, but went to sleep eventually. Thought it was just a weird whale at the time, thought my mind was making things up, making me hear words where there weren’t any.

I was wrong. Heard it again a few nights later, only it was less rumbly, and more like a real voice now. Still couldn’t make out the words, but I heard syllables. I figured, maybe don’t mention it to the crew, hmm? Maybe don’t let them know something weird was up, that I was hearing voices? Elsewise they might throw  _ me _ into the sea too.

Couple days later I was doing a flyaround - I don’t just make the crew do em, I do them too, there’s no sense in refusing to do your part - and spotted something down in the coral, so I flew down to check it out. It was fur, from that tundra, but it was all growing on the coral like a weird algae covering or something. I splashed down, you know how we can sit in water like birds? Yeah, I splashed down, and then I heard that voice again.

Still couldn’t make out the words. But it sounded less like a rumble through the ocean and the sand and more like someone speaking behind me. I turned, because that startled me, and somehow my pearl got loose and dropped into the water.

This is where I remember everything, like it happened minutes ago. I saw it go, down into the water - the reef wasn’t that deep, and the waves really calm this far in, so I figured I could just dive and grab it. Ain’t the first time this had happened, I’ve dropped my pearl in saltwater and fresh alike before. Doused it, it never got hurt. What are pearls if not from the sea originally, yeah? So I ducked my head under and went and got it, put my claws about it, tried to pull it up.

The seabed wasn’t the seabed. It wasn’t sand. It was some kind of flesh, grown all around the corals, over top of them and covered with a fine layer of sand, like a trick. I should’ve noticed there were no fish around, no octopuses, nothing. I should’ve seen that, but I didn’t.

The stuff on the bottom - I never could discern what it was. Tendrils? Sheets? Like some Plague nonsense, but worse. It had hold of my pearl, and when I grabbed it, it grabbed hold of me too, flowing over my hands like water and up my arms. I of course tried to wrench away, you know, and then I threw a bit of light at it, because that usually works on Plague nonsense. But it didn’t even recoil, not in the slightest. And I thought I heard a laugh.

It didn’t go further than my forearms. Held me there for as long as I could hold my breath, and when I finally was about to drown, it just pulled back and let me go. I jetted to the surface, gasping for breath, and floundered my way away from that hellish spot. It didn’t try to stop me or anything.

Dried myself off, went back to the ship, and forbade anyone from going over there due to dangerous corals. I’m not sure they believed me, but they listened, and that’s what mattered. Didn’t want anybody else getting caught up in that mess. What was it doing with our old tundra mate’s fur??

Heard the voice again that night. Right in my ears, clear as day.

“Light,” it said, “rapturous, burning, beautiful.”

“I don’t like that you haven’t introduced yourself,” I said.

“We are unable to do so,” it said, “for we have no identity.”

“Can you please stop talking to me?” I said.

“No,” the voice replied, and the more I listened, the more I realized it was a bunch of smaller voices. “No. You are with Us, now.”

That’s all it said. I asked some more questions, but it never responded. That’s the last time I heard the voice, ever. That sounds odd, but I really didn’t. Never.

After that’s when I started getting the first headaches, and when I saw my pearl being all dulled over with some kind of scum. I had to scrub it to get it off - scrub it with sand, which I didn’t like. What if it tore part of my pearl off? I coughed up some new nacre for it, but even that got scummed over almost immediately, and halfway through drying part of it broke off; i think it had sand under it. Didn’t like that, tried it again and let it cure for longer and it stuck, but it still looked horrible.

We abandoned the island not long after that, partially because I kept getting sick on it, partially because other people told me they heard a voice and I figured it was time to leave this place to the gulls. We went back south, all the way to Sornieth. Turned out that island was a bust! Took a crewmate and made me ill, so it was worthless. My pearl never got clean - I scrubbed the shit out of it, kept trying to fix it up, but it was always just messy on the surface. Until recently, I finally got it smooth and clean. It looks nice now, though I keep having to touch it up every so often. I don’t remember it being so high-maintenance before.

Regardless. We went back to Starmount, and that’s when I found the first… you know. The eye. I found it on my side, just a little thing, and I hid it, of course. I figured well, it’s probably the Songmoat and the arcane shit that’s floating around everywhere. Not good for a dragon to be flying or sailing around in. Those energies just mess with everyone.

But then I got another. And another, up and down my sides. Even one on my head that I had to get a patch to cover, claiming that I’d gotten wounded. And… even with the headaches, I felt like I was better at magic, and I could actually  _ see _ from some of these eyes.

I still hated it. It was happening and I wasn’t in control of it. I tried to get rid of a few of them - they’re situated really deep in my skin and flesh, and I had to cut to the bone just to get one of them out. It was a mess. Just bandaged the others up halfway cut and left them to heal. It might not be worth it; I can just bandage more, yeah? Cover them up. I can’t see much with them covered, but I can still see more than I otherwise would. Sound. Magical signatures. Metals, heat. All sorts of things.

I don’t know why. I don’t understand it. But my eyes are yellow, not that ghost-green, and I’m alive. I’m alive. And I’m not dying any time soon.

In case I do die, I wrote this down. Just so you know not to take my ship and find my fucking treasure. Because it’s caught in the middle of the worst place I’ve ever been. That island killed my crew and put freakish eyes all over my body, and screwed up my pearl for a while. It will change you.

I didn’t let it change me more than it has. I’m still me, and I’m doing my damn job, and I’m damn good at it, too. I’m staying near Sornieth now. It was bloody hard to get back in - had to get a Watchdragon to open a hole in the barrier to let us through, for the gods’ farting sakes - and I’m not passing through it again. No.

Never. I’m staying close to the land. I’ll die before I leave the sea behind, and I love it with all my soul, but I’m never going back north.

You’ll have to kill me first.


End file.
